Cease to Exist
by Fading to Black
Summary: There are many societies that are kept secret from the world at large for various reasons. Harry has seen monsters all his life, and meets a man with glasses when he was four. The Veil of Death leads straight to Soul Society. Life and Death will cease to exist. Adopted from psychoticKisshu's Harry Potter, Shadow Shinigami. Formerly Through the Rabbit Hole, Redux.
1. Prologue: An Unremarkable Meeting

**Hello, all! I will now apologize in advance for any long absences due to school or any other time-consuming activities. **

**I will disclaim any perceived ownership for either Bleach or Harry Potter, though ****I feel this unnecessary **given the nature of this site as a /fanfiction/ site. Specifically, the site is composed of and created for 'fans' of popular and semi-popular anime/manga, novels, movies, cartoons etc. writing 'fiction' in the universe(s) of their choice. If the actual author wanted to write further, they would either create another book/movie/cartoon, etc, or would do so on an author site instead of one meant for their /fans/.

**I will also point out that much of the original inspiration for this comes from psychoticKisshu, and that I have her permission to use her ideas in this story, specifically, ideas adopted from her story Harry Potter, Shadow Shinigami. Admittedly, while the beginning will remain much the same, my story is my own and will not be exactly like hers, which is partly why I am rewriting even those parts that stay mostly the same.**

* * *

Prologue : An Unremarkable Meeting

Harry Potter had never been quite normal by the standards of the universe. That's discounting his birth as a wizard, to an old-family pureblood and a muggleborn at that. It also forbore the mention of the occasional odd situation, like that extra milk carton coming into his possession even though the teachers were certain that little Harry had not left his seat. That was even discounting the fact that if one actually looked for records of him, they suddenly appeared at age 3, when the free local preschool began accepting students and people would have started asking uncomfortable questions of the scrawny ghost-child who could often be seen working outside 4 Privet Drive.

Harry had always known he was different than the Dursleys. If he concentrated, (and even sometimes when he didn't) things happened around him. This, Harry knew, was what made him different, made him freaky. Given the reactions to just having reason to guess that he would be a freak and these things would be possible for him, Harry wondered if doing his 'freaky things' in front of his relatives would be a good way to watch them all have heart attacks and end it. He'd heard about heart attacks on the TV through the cupboard door. He heard a lot of things through the cupboard door that he wasn't supposed to hear, and he was certain that heart attacks fell under a category that said that four year old freaks were not meant to know about them just yet.

He decided against it. Being freaky got him locked in the cupboard without meals, and a whole host of bruises. A totally uncalled for punishment, he felt, but not one he could do anything about. Doing 'freaky things' in front of them might get him killed one day, Uncle Vernon's fault. And, if they managed to die because of the impending heart attack, he would have to go to the orphanage, and the orphanage would be far worse than the Dursleys, he was assured.

Being smarter than Duddykins, doing something better than Dudders or anything of the sort were achievements that could only be private. If he let on to his Aunt's family, he'd be in for it, probably a few swats more and a few meals less for it. That was the best way to deal with disobedient freaks, after all. Freaks weren't supposed to be seen or heard. If he was the more intelligent child in the household, it was why he had learned not to ask questions and figured out what answers he could on his own.

And, being the more intelligent child in the houshold, even at the tender age of four, he had realized that he could see things that no one else could, people and monsters both. The people were odd enough, sometimes normal and sometimes wearing a black-and-white costume that looked nothing like Uncle Vernon's best suit. But the monsters were even weirder. Sometimes, they-the noise of crashing glass right near him made Harry jump.

He held his breath as he looked around for the perpetrator of the noise, hoping desperately that it was from the inside of Number Six's kitchen, whose window was open and had been tormenting him with the smell of baking bread for what seemed like forever. Skittishly, he recognized the pieces of Number Five's wind chime across the street, blowing in the sudden wind. He hoped he wasn't blamed, but that was likely futile. Then he saw the commotion on the strip of street between Numbers Three and Four.

It was one of the monsters with the white masks over their faces and holes in their torsos, he tensed, standing so he could run, weeding tool abandoned on the ground by Aunt Petunia's flower beds. This monster...it was bad, very bad, bigger and more dangerous than any other he had seen. Harry would be in unimaginably huge trouble if it saw him.

His attention was drawn as a man, one of those who wore socks with sandals and those strange black outfits that looked as big on them as Dudley's were on him, though this one had a long white coat on over it with a black symbol on the back. He stood frozen, trancelike, as the man pulled out a long knife, a lot longer than the one Aunt Petunia was teaching him to use for vegetables, and started trying to cut up the monster. It looked like he would succeed eventually, and as scary as the monsters were, this person was perhaps more dangerous.

Plots within plots, whispered a niggling thought, and plans within plans. Several goals, hidden ones, a whole hidden agenda. No one would suspect the man unless he wanted them to (and why would he?). The tousled light brown hair and the glasses could be as easily kind as menacing, the man's expression as capable of being sinister as being innocent. An innovative amoral hidden behind innocence. A man you could trust to watch your back as long as you were useful to him-at which point his knife would be at your throat.

The monster sort of exploded and then started fading slowly, and Harry knew the fight was over. The man with the false kind eyes touched his arm, and then flexed it. The wind was blowing towards Harry, and he smelled a faint scent of blood. The man was injured, and by the expression on his face was unsatisfied with that state. The man's expression was the disgusted one that Vernon always sported when he saw the freak inside the house, especially if he was eating any of the Dursleys' hard-earned food.

Suddenly, Harry sneezed, the noise loud in the new silence of the street. The man's head swiveled, and he caught sight of Harry. The man took on an inquisitive look that Harry didn't think was faked and took a step towards him. Harry was unable to help his taking a step back. The man's eyes widened, as he processed the implications of being seen. Harry took this hesitation as time to make a break for the forest, bolting like prey that had seen a hunting predator and was desperate to get away with its life.

He headed towards the forest that lay behind Privet Drive. He knew the forest, knew it well, and it was _his_ forest. He wouldn't get lost. He could get to one of his hidey-holes and wait the dangerous man out, because the dangerous man did not know the forest at all. If he got to the hidey-hole, no one could find him. Not one of the people in sandals and socks and odd black clothes, not the people who bowed to him in the shop, not the monsters with white masks and empty holes where their hearts should be.

There! Just where he thought it would be, was a little cave formed by a huge tree being partially uprooted and a hollow forming where the foremost roots used to be. It was one of his hidey-holes. Looking for the man behind him and not seeing him, he scampered into the tiny cavity, heart pounding with the exertion. Inside, he sat down and focused on not being found.

* * *

Aizen noticed another presence just after he dispatched the now-useless experimental hollow, it having been revealed to him by an untimely sneeze. He felt himself prepare for a fight with something-anything-only to find himself looking at a raggedy little living boy whose clothes more resembled the wear worn by the losers of the fights in the Outer Rukongai Districts than anything a Living World child usually wore and was thinner than those children unfortunate enough to be dropped into such a barbaric, uncivilized, unlivable area. There was dirty, messy black hair over flashing green eyes, eye-catching eyes.

Terrified eyes. Curious, he took a step towards the boy. The boy took one back, and bolted as Aizen paused. Before Aizen could take more than a half dozen steps forward, the boy had already disappeared into the forest. Aizen could feel the curiosity welling up in him to explore the anamoly the boy represented as he followed him into the shadowed trees.

A few minutes later, Aizen had to truly commend the boy's knowledge of the forest. It had become clear the moment he entered the forest that he would have to follow the boy's reiatsu, which was surprisingly large for a human, much less a small child. The boy had definitely been able to see him, with that reiatsu. Besides, following him was well nigh impossible. Even with the focus he was putting on the hollow, he wasn't quite sure how he had missed this young boy's power. Whichever way, he most certainly recognized it now.

Moreover, the boy was frighteningly fast, and had great apparent ability to navigate and pick his way through the detrius covering the floor. Aizen barely dared to shunpo, given that the first time he did he had tripped over one of the larger roots and nearly broke his ankle. The child had to be tiring soon, and he would eventually catch up to him, and-the boy's reiatsu disappeared in the space of a moment, like a candle that had been blown out.

Aizen kept moving towards the direction he had last felt the boy. He stretched his senses, attempting to find the boy again, without any success. The reiatsu had just disappeared into thin air. Aizen frowned to himself. All of the captains could hide their reiatsu as it was often necessary to not crush the unseated shinigami with only a little reiatsu, but for a child, a living child, to be able to disappear so thoroughly…it was impossible. Fascinating.

At last he reached the place where he had last felt the boy. His arm was starting to hurt, but he ignored it in favor of finding the anamoly he had followed. He searched the nearby trees for signs of his passage, and found none. The boy was quickly becoming a source of both amusement and annoyance for him. A living child, perhaps three or four, was hiding from him to great success. When he died and came to Soul Society, provided he kept his reiatsu, would be a shoo-in for the Second Division and the Onmitsukido. He idly wondered how Soi Fon would react when he reported the strange human child with more untrained reiatsu than the average seated officer.

If he didn't manage to find the boy, he was sure she would try. He _would_ find the boy.

If nothing else, he could not let such an opportunity as the chance to study this child unmolested by Gotei authority. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and if what they didn't know hurt them, they wouldn't be staying as authority much longer. He'd proven that to his former Captain and his associates after that unfortunate incident with a different experimental hollow in Rukongai. It was one of the reasons he had a base in Hueco Mundo. Testing his hollows on other hollows drew much less attention than testing them on middle-outer Rukongai districts ever did when he felt the need. Or testing them on the Living World for that matter, where odd hollows would arguably draw the most attention.

The throbbing in his arm tripled in an instant, nearly sending him crumpling to the ground with sudden pain. The wound was poisoned, he knew. From what they could tell by its interactions with other hollows, the unstable hollow-creation he had killed had had a severe sadistic streak, waiting and watching its victims nearly die in agony and only eating at the last moment. Any less debilitating poison would have gotten the thing killed before he had had to put it down.

Then he felt the prickle on his neck that meant someone was watching him. This watcher made no attempt to talk to him, ruling out that a shinigami, had come after him. Not that that was likely after all-he was a captain and there had never been many captain-class shinigami. It could only be the boy, the one he had been looking for, who now had the perfect opportunity to get away if he was really as close as he seemed to be. He ignored the boy's presence in favor of looking over the wound on his arm.

Aizen would never admit it, he knew, but he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the soft, almost hoarse voice behind him. "It's poisoned." The boy, it had to be. The hand on his arm was miniscule, and another of the same size was poking the wound. He wasn't sure when it had gotten there, which rang mental warning bells.

Aizen processed the idea of the boy's presence, then his words, all the while wondering why it was taking so long to work through it. "I understand, little one. I will get it healed when I return to the place I came from."

"Nu-uh. It's fast acting. Feel really weak, like world's spinning around really soon. Won't make it home before it gets to the heart. And then you'll be gone, like Thrasher the dog." The boy spoke confidently.

Aizen was all set to say that a small boy like him wouldn't know what he was talking about when a wave of dizzyness and weakness came upon him, and his knees folded under him. "Where are your parents, little one? You're much too young to be in a forest alone."

That earned him a dirty look. "They're dead. They've always been dead, so long as I can 'member," two tiny fists balled up, thankfully away from the wound. "And I'm not little" he added petulantly. "'Sides, I can heal it for you."

Aizen raised an eyebrow at the proclamation. "Can you, then?"

The boy nodded, biting his lip. Then he put his hands above the wound and his face twisted up in concentration. The sight would have been rather adorable if he hadn't been in the midst of healing a lethal wound at the time. A fine blackish mist that hinted of dark purple rose up from underneath the boy's hands. Aizen's other eyebrow rose as his head cleared of the haze it had been in. The mist cleared the moment the boy took his hands away, and beneath it was the pink of a healthy healing scar, paling quickly into one that looked almost old.

"You have quite the talent there, child." Aizen told the child, looking admiringly at his work. If Soi Fon wanted this boy, she would have to fight Unohana to get to him. With the ability to heal a lethal wound like that, and so young... Well, the young ones were always most impressionable.

The smile that the boy rewarded him with for his small complement was brilliant, dazzling even. Aizen instinctively, inevitably felt his own lips turn in a responsive smile. In that moment, he felt intensely protective of this little human living boy who had just saved his life. The boy was simply adorable, in a waifish sort of way. "Child, if your parents are dead, who takes care of you?" He felt like the father-figure he tried to emulate for the Arrancar he had managed to make.

The fear and terror he had seen when the boy ran from him in the first place was back in full force. It might have even been worse. The little thing was trembling like a leaf, or like an unseated shinigami exposed to his captain's full reiatsu for a few moments. "No! You can't! I won't let you!" The boy shouted, agitated. "You can't tell them about anything! You need to forget!" The boy's right hand flung violently sideways across his body, left to right before he turned tail and disappeared back to his nearest hidey-hole under the leaning tree

* * *

Aizen blinked, looking around the surrounding forest, feeling slightly disoriented. When had he gotten into the forest? He had been chasing that thrice-damned experimental hollow around. Perhaps he had followed it in? The thing was annoyingly agile. However, the loss of the memory of running into the forest after it that was most worrisome.

Simply put, there was absolutely no evidence of this ability from any hollow, let alone this one. He had devoted quite a substantial amount of time and resources into following this hollow, as had it been stable and not swung into further hollowification than he intended during that instability, it would have been one of his finest permutations yet. That wasn't to mention the truly enormous amount of time and resources he had allocated for hollows in general.

From there there was only one conclusion to be made; some being other than a hollow had repressed or stolen those memories of the last twenty minutes or so. The blank space in his memory was almost tangible to his senses. He frowned, having too much self-control to growl. Blanks like that were dangerous, and he had no idea what could have caused it, aside from the Twelfth, but they would not have been present here. He twitched,deciding to feel amused instead of annoyed that something unidentifiable had managed to attack him, and left no trace aside from what he couldn't remember-and, as he quickly found, couldn't reverse.

Perhaps they had something to do with the green eyes, bright frightened green eyes that were the only thing he _could_ remember.


	2. 1: An Attempt At Planning

Chapter 1: An Attempt at Planning

"Sirius! No, no, no, let me go!" A teenage boy, a far cry from the flighty four year old he had been when he had met, talked to and saved Aizen Sosuke, screamed through his sleeping, dreaming state. "Sirius! No, No, No! SIRIUS!" And, as that same boy had far too many times before, Harry Potter felt wakefulness crash over him like a tidal wave at high tide, shooting onto his elbows in his bed. It was at times like this that he was truly glad he wasn't sleeping in the cupboard anymore, or he'd have bumped his head quite badly, and he didn't need any further injuries. His heart was racing, and his clothes were damp with sweat. His abused throat felt raw as he gasped air through it.

It couldn't have been a week that he was back at the Dursley's prison-house before he had started waking up screaming. It had become depressingly normal since, and he feared what would happen once he got back to school in September, just a couple weeks away. Harry glanced sideways over at the clock he had once laboriously repaired after Dudley had thrown it across a room and swore. It was barely 3 am. He'd woken up screaming for Sirius each time, to the best of his often limited ability. he refused to believed that Sirius was dead-or, at least, dead in a way where he wouldn't be able to see him. So, after a fashion, Sirius was still alive.

Somewhere, far away, somewhere called the Soul Society. The place where the people wearing the loose black clothes came from. He kept that information to himself. If they didn't declare him crazy with grief (or just plain crazy) then it would reveal a rare ability to Dumbledore the Controlling. It must be rare, given that there was absolutely nothing in the Hogwarts Library on anything like it, and that library had amazing resources on things like Parselmouths and rare Glotmancy in general. Besides, it had been practically implied multiple times to him.

Even knowing that Sirius was still around somewhere didn't mean that his absence didn't hurt. It did, and badly. Sirius was the closest thing he'd had to a father, to a real family, and his absence was still a constant melancholy. Sirius had died. There was a chance that when he got to Soul Society he wouldn't remember Harry or anyone else he had known in this life. He put a hand over the psychosomatic ache in his chest he got when he was reflecting on Sirius's death. The voice he often heard in his head sneered at him and berated him by calling him a 'sentimental weakling'. His lips quirked up as he read between the lines to see 'you need to move on with your life, dumbass' to use the language the voice probably would've.

He needed away from the Dursleys, and soon/ Preferably before they actually managed to kill him. Where would he go, then, and with whom? There were a couple people he could count on to get him away eventually, if the 'blood wards' would let them, but there was no telling how long it would take to contact them. He also had to be able to escape Dumbledore entirely if he asked for their help, and have them manage to help him in such a way that Dumbledore couldn't find them. Or know that the existed in the first place, which ruled out going to them for help.

Dumbledore was too much like that man with the false-kind eyes from when he was little to hint at that sort of power around him.

Who could he rely on, then? The mirror popped into mind. It could work, especially after he transfigured the largest piece into a mirror identical to the original, and transferred the remnants of the enchantments from all the broken pieces onto the new mirror. Not only was he not sure if the mirror was functional, but Sirius could not help him here. Perhaps he could try it once he got away, he thought listlessly, touching the little chain he had made of all the remaining mirror pieces. The broken pieces were more comforting than the refurbished mirror, for some reason.

Getting away meant 'not here', which implied leaving under the Order's collective protuberant nose. He could probably manage it for good, given the other times he'd slipped off with one or another of his friends. The tracking charms on him could be placed on his bed using the same spells as he'd used on the mirror pieces to avoid over-stretching the existing fractional enchantment on the transfigured mirror. Leaving for good meant that he needed money, so a trip to Gringotts was in order, with one of those bags with far too much space on the inside. He would need a disguise to get there, but goblins were prideful creatures and unless they were truly desperate, they wouldn't sell him out. Dumbledore wouldn't stand a chance once he handed the goblins the paper that said that Albus Dumbledore was not his true magical guardian, and in fact never had been. He had no authority to get into his vault, ever. He'd have to ask them to check for thievery. It was quite possible, given that a whole host of people had his original key (he had taken it from the Weasleys after they had once again bought his schoolbooks for him) and given that Dumbledore had given him a Potter family heirloom in his first year as a Christmas gift. If it had been in the vault, there was every chance that he had taken something for himself too. Then again, he may not have. To be found stealing from the Wizarding World's Savior would be a career killer for him.

Where was still a question, however. Then the voice came through with a pretty good idea-once, when he'd had access to Dudley's computer, he'd looked up the clothing and traced the types to traditional japanese wear, though he hadn't found anything about that specific uniform. Still, he'd found Japan before losing the tail, and as such it was a decent place to start. It was true that he knew quite a bit about the uniforms and where they came from, but he was still curious. Besides, it would be the place to find some of his honorary onee-sans and onii-sans. Thus a plan came together-money, and a trip to Japan.

Maybe, if things went his way he could see his godfather again away from the influence and interference of Dumbledore and his Order of Quacking Cuckoos, no offence intended to Fawkes of course.

Snickering, he decided to write to Snape. That man had to be curious about him by now, and he was likely less under Dumbledore's thumb than some. He was also the last person Dumbledore would think he would ask for help. Remus, on the other hand, was enthralled by Dumbledore, and was therefore useless to him, no matter how much he claimed to care. Remus probably did, but lycanthrope or not there was no reason not to send him letters at least, especially after he started at Hogwarts.

He wrote to Snape about getting out from under Dumbledore's fingers, and that he was skipping town to somewhere that anyone would be hard-pressed to track him. The man really didn't seem to want him dead despite his acerbity, and so the only way to make sure he was alive was to either keep in touch, which would mean helping him in what ways he could. He probably could too. It wasn't like Voldemort was going to suddenly forget him just because he had disappeared to some random country nine timezones away.

He also wrote Silvershear, a goblin at Gringotts. Gringotts goblins had told him about the little bit of soul stuck in his scar, given that it had shown up on a scan they had done of Harry to confirm his identity when Harry had come to listen to Sirius's Will. Harry made the connection to Voldemort, the visions from his eyes, and the pain he felt when he was near, or especially emotional. The thrice-damned piece of snake soul was trying to get back to its original soul, as it was the instinct of the soul to repair itself after injury. Silvershear had been the one to tell him about horcruxes, though he had been well-advised to stay away from them in the future, and suggest to him the procedure that would remove the soul piece.

There had never been such a thing as a living horcrux, because living things were so complicated that the ritual used to implant a soul piece in a living soul was equally complex, so it was postulated that a bit of rubble, dust even, was the true container of the soul and had been sealed into his scar by the unfortunate (but likely, in the wake of all the magic surrounding him, his mother, and the killing curses hurled in their direction) chance of it having flown inside. When the soul piece would not be able to attach itself to him, the most magically central thing in the room, it would have gone for the next closest thing, a bit of something inside his bleeding head. As far as he knew, no one had checked up on him at all after that night, he had just been placed in a basket with a blanket his mother had made (he no longer had the blanket, Dudley had once ruined it beyond what his magic could repair and thrown it away when they were six) and left to get sick in the chilly November night.

A little piece of something that the soul had connected to when he hadn't been able to connect to the soul whose body the little piece was inside was the theory. The piece had been surrounded by Harry's magic, which had detected the foreign intrusion, and given that the fight to leave his body had intensified when Voldemort was upset, it was possible that the magic keeping the soul piece in, interacting with the soul piece, was actually the source of his trouble.

Or he could in fact be a living horcrux, at which point the ritual would still be effective because the soul piece was still lodged in his scar. The goblins didn't think so, though they had no explanation for his survival of the killing curse so anything was technically possible.

The only reason he had not yet done the ritual was the necessity of a complete abstention of magic for a week, given the draining nature of the ritual. Now, though, he had that week. It was time to get that over with.

He couldn't, wouldn't contact his friends. He needed to get out of here before Dumbledore decided to trundle him off to his godfather's prison, Grimmauld Place. He might just be paranoid, but he needed to be sure that his friends were actually his friends, and would take his side over Dumbledore's. He suspected that they might not, and while it hurt him to think of abandoning them, he steeled himself to the possible necessity.

It wasn't like he could go around spouting his plans. He was only barely sixteen, and so not in his wizarding majority. If they caught him, they could force him to stay for another year. Another year was completely unacceptable. Sirius was gone, and Voldemort would only step up his attempts. This world was a dangerous place that many people were fleeing. Could anyone blame him for doing the same, really? He was a sixteen year old. A teenager. A child. A mere boy, as Voldemort had said. This was going to be a war. This was going to be a man's game, not a place for a child. He had no way of 'taking care' of Voldemort before he left. He would do something at one point, if it truly came down to him, but right now he was a sitting duck. That chance was the only reason he had deigned to take a chance on Snape. If he had been anyone else other than the 'Boy Who Lived', he would have just up and left.

What was a prophecy, anyway?

* * *

Back in Hogwarts, Professor Severus Snape's face was set in a deep scowl as he contemplated the enigma that was Harry Potter. A pile of the boy's essays from his first class on to the last of the past year sat innocently on his sitting room table. They were almost malicious in that innocence.

The discrepancy between what he had read in that thick sheaf of parchment and the classwork Potter had done was glaring. In class, Potter was a hopeless dunderhead who never stood a chance of completing a proper Beautifying Draught, an end of second-year/beginning of third-year potion, much less the Draught of the Living Death. It was obvious that he'd not inherited either of his parents' potion skills-even James Potter had been passable, if nothing else than to mix prank potions. Yet the essays could have been written by a seventh year, who was not only knowledgeable in the subject but in his want for meticulousness without going overboard (an inch or two long could be forgiven. A foot was unacceptable.) or an early Mastery student in later years. It was certainly better than Lily at his age, though not as good as himself.

In short, things weren't adding up properly and that was infuriating. The boy had to have inherited Lily's skill, and yet he chose to behave like a dunderhead in class. Severus was determined that he would figure out just why Potter was hiding his skill and how good the boy actually was. If he was good enough, he might consider taking the brat on as an apprentice. If it would not be an utter waste of his time, it would be a good way to keep an eye on the boy and to keep him out of trouble.

If the boy was good enough to be his apprentice, he could fulfill his dreams of leaving Hogwarts, since even Albus could not keep a Master from training his Apprentice. Leaving Hogwarts would get him away from Albus entirely, leaving his many manipulations in the dust. He may have loved Hogwarts as a safer place, a lesser evil, but he hated teaching the usual group of incompetent brats he saw every year. Albus didn't need a Potions Master for the first years. It would also get Potter, the boy he had sworn to protect, out of the firing range. It would benefit the boy as well-Dumbledore's manipulations weren't good for any of the targets, and while he wasn't sure what Potter had been central to, he was sure that it wouldn't benefit the boy to continue of that path.

First of all, it was Dumbledore's war with Voldemort, more than anyone else. Including and especially the titled Boy-Who-Lived, who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. People just saw that the boy survived, not thinking about the death of Lily Evans (Potter, he reminded himself) and James Potter, or that the boy was another war orphan. Dumbledore had no right to expect the child to go out into a war with no training and less support.

There had been a tapping at his door, by the owl-window. Usually owls would leave their packages in the post-slot and leave, and he could only wonder why this one was not doing so. Then he came upon the bird, the magnificent snowy owl that he recognized to be Potter's, given the scarcity of snowy owls at Hogwarts during the school year it was easily recognizable. Potter, the very conundrum he had been contemplating. He opened the parchment that had been attached to her leg quickly before sitting back. Why in the world had Potter chosen to contact him of all people was a viable question after all. He started to read. That had been an hour previously.

He was smirking when he reached the end. He thought vindictively of Dumbledore, who would have a conniption when he realized that two of his most prized and valuable pawns were now forever out of his reach. He picked up a quill, and started to pen a reply to Potter. Soon, he would be free.

* * *

In a small town in Japan called Karakura, there was a small celebration for a little boy's eleventh birthday. It was a few days belated because two of his closest friends were on trips when his birthday passed, but that didn't mean that they didn't have just as much fun when they got back home.

The boy's name was Kurosaki Ichigo, as as of yet his world was just as it always was-safe.


	3. 2: An Unexpected Visitation

Chapter 2: An Unexpected Visitation

"Boy!" Mornings at the Dursley Household were always fun, especially when Vernon decided to wake him up. "Boy! Get Down Here Immediately!" He could almost see the spittle flying from Uncle Vernon's mouth and cringed inwardly. He didn't know what had happened, but a voice like that promised a great deal of pain to him. Still, he rolled out of bed and ran downstairs as quickly as he could manage. You didn't delay when Uncle Vernon bellowed like that.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs he skidded to a stop, surprised by the Potions Master standing on the front mat of 4 Privet Drive. "Potter." The man was sneering, as he usually was. "Gather your belongings quickly and come to the sitting room."

"Yes sir," Harry replied, then scampered up the stairs with the same agility he had used to go down them. He spun quickly into the room he slept in, and pressed his back against the door, closing it gently. He took a deep breath before taking stock of the room. The trunk was in his cupboard, in the cupboard under the stairs. He had been given a generous fifteen minutes to look through the detritus and pull out his hand-me-downs from Dudley, his clothing for the summer. He'd also been told that he would 'get it' if he took out anything from 'that freak school'. Therefore the only magical paraphernalia outside the trunk was his wand, the small potions chest, the invisibility cloak, and Hedwig. The wand was wrapped in the cloak before being placed gently under a loose floorboard, and Hedwig was locked in her cage again this year, much to her displeasure.

He threw all of Dudley's clothing into the main pocket of an old backpack that Dudley said was too small for him. The arm straps were, perhaps, too small for his meaty paws. It wasn't too small for Harry, but Dudley had broken the plastic clamps that adjusted the arm straps, and it could be more comfortable for him. He had also busted the smallest zippered pocket, so Harry threw his wand, chest, and cloak into the middle pocket. After a moment's consideration, he decided that Dudley had never read the books on the shelf in the first place, and put his two favorites, _Oliver Twist _by Charles Dickins and _The Prince _by Niccolo Machiavelli, in the middle pocket as well.

Shrugging on the uneven straps, Harry traversed the stairs again, more tentatively this time. He _had_ initiated contact with his prickly professor, but he truly hadn't expected a visit. He turned right at the end of the small entrance way and in to the sitting room. "Sir?" he questioned.

Snape was sitting on one of the couches, with a teacup sitting in front of him. At his entrance, Snape raised an eyebrow. "Sit, Potter. Am I to believe that a backpack and your owl is all you wish to bring with you?"

"No sir," Harry grit his teeth, trying to keep from flushing with embarrassment. "My school trunk is in my cupboard under the stairs. I haven't gotten it because the cupboard door is locked, and I don't have the key."

Snape stood and strode over to the cupboard, wand out. "Alohomora," he said and the door swung open. Harry tried to get away from the cupboard with the trunk as quickly as possible, but not before Snape had seen the faded, messy sign on the inside of the cupboard door that read "Harry's Room", nor some of the pictures Harry had drawn as a young child still living in the non-magical world that were still tacked up on the walls, nor the small camp mattress that still lay on the floor, gathering dust. He had been a spy after all, and he resolved to run through the scene later in his pensieve. This was far from what he ever expected to see, after all.

A minute later, both teacher and student were once again sitting in the sitting room, on opposite couches. Snape's tea had cooled, but Petunia and Vernon both had disappeared, and Harry was much too tense about Snape seeing the cupboard, one he might recognize from the failed Occlumency sessions (which might be on his mind, given Harry's belated apology in the letter he had sent) and one he might draw conclusions about. He was also quite sore and trying not to show it-healing potions often had that effect, which was annoying even if an improvement over the original injury or injuries. "Mr. Potter," Snape began. "Would you acquiesce to leaving this house permanently?"

Would he? Snape had to know he would, especially given that he expected that the professor had drawn his own conclusions. Harry's nervousness narrowed into suspicion. "And the catch, sir?"

Snape cleared his throat, snarking, "You would be leaving here as my apprentice. Until you gained your mastery, you would take all orders from me, and comply with my orders, you will be at my discretion. No one else would be able to dictate your actions, including in the case of your accommodations."

To Harry's credit, he managed to stifle any comments about the latter part of Snape's declaration. "But sir!" His eyes were blown wide equally with innocent disbelief and disbelieving innocence. "I'm horrible at potions, everybody knows that! And you remind me every class just how bad I am. You don't even do that to Neville, and he blows up his cauldron more times than not!"

Snape's countenance darkened into a glower. "Do not feign ignorance, Mr. Potter. I am well aware that you deliberately sabotage your potions in class. I do not pretend to understand your reasoning for doing so in class while turning in exemplary essays, but this behavior will cease and desist. I will not allow it to continue. If your essays are any indication, Mr. Potter, you have talent. I want to see it developed, something that is impossible at Hogwarts for a multitude of reasons. However, as my apprentice your talent would be able to flourish, and you will be free of Dumbledore's manipulations and of this house.

"There are too few people with true potions talent in recent times to let you slip through the cracks. You would kill the Dark Lord-there is a plan for that which involves minimal safety risk, Dumbledore just hasn't seen fit to use it. Then we will remove ourselves from Britain, perhaps Europe entirely. I would have suggested Japan, given on old acquaintance of mine who lives there, had you not already done so. Given the disdain for European wizards often hosted by Asian wizards in conjunction with European Dark Lords, Japan will be a much improved situation for you. It is likely they will still recognize you, but it will not matter so much to them as it does here. Any questions?"

And, for the first time in living memory, Harry Potter smiled at Snape. "When do we start, Professor?" he chirped. Then he started to frown. "And there is a plan to take down Voldemort without risking everyone's lives and Dumbledore's not using it? Why the hell not? And how the hell is there any sort of plan like that? I just keep getting thrown at the guy, despite the fact that he has decades of experience, and is more than willing to curse me to hell and back, and there's a plan to kill him anyway?" Continuing to babble through his rising emotions, "And why me, Professor? Why take me as your apprentice? Surely you'd prefer Malfoy or something. You've made it quite clear that you look at me and see my father, and you hate my father!"

Snape's lip quirked as Harry lost steam, and he began answering his questions with surprising patience. "We will begin to train you for the confrontation of the Dark Lord immediately. You will need to go to the Ministry to take your Potions NEWTs, but with the standard of work I have come to expect from you, that will not be an issue. After that, we can register you as my apprentice. As for the Headmaster, I do not pretend to understand how his mind works, despite knowing him for years. I doubt your Head of House would profess to understand that man, and she has known him far longer than I. I presume that there is a connection between your 'getting thrown at him' and Dumbledore's refusal to use this plan. I, however, do not feel the same hesitance.

"And, as I said before, there is too little actual potions talent that to let you slip through the cracks would be criminal." I also once made your mother a promise that I would keep you safe if it was at all in my power to do so, Snape added silently. He hesitated a moment before adding, "Your father lacked any real talent in the subject, your dogfather and his pet wolf were far better at potions than him."

"As for the Dark Lord...are you aware of the significance of a horcrux?" Harry nodded yes, an answer Snape did not seem to expect. "The Headmaster has destroyed several horcruxes, and we believe that there are only two left-you and Nagini, the Dark Lord's snake. There are few problems that can not be solved by an application of potions, this situation included."

Harry cursed. "Damn it! I was hoping Dumbledore wouldn't think of the possibility I hosted a horcrux." At Snape's questioning facial expression, Harry continued. "I knew it was likely there was a fucking horcrux in my scar already, thanks to some people, and I've got someone helping me to get it out safely."

"Language, Mr. Potter." Snape reprimanded.

"English, sir. I'll attempt to curb the instinct to swear every few sentences whilst I am in your presence, sir!" Harry beamed cheekily.

"Impudent, cheeky brat." Snape's voice held a tad of self-loathing.

"True enough," Harry grinned, "But I'm an impudent cheeky brat with untapped potential that you get to discover first hand."

Snape pressed two fingers to his forehead in a rare outward show of irritation. "What was I thinking when I suggested this arrangement, again?"

It was a wonder that Harry's face wasn't sore from all the smiling he hadn't done in a week. "That you can get one over Dumbledore, and get out of his sphere of influence? Oh, and possibly the Ministry as well."

Snape shrank the school trunk before handing the toy-sized wood to Harry. "You, Mr. Potter, are an insufferable brat."

"You've got to suffer through me, though, and it's your own doing this time, sir! And is brat to be my new name, given the amount of times you've used it?"

"An excellent idea, brat!" Snape smirked.

Harry fingered the backpack, but didn't put it on. "Is there any way we'll have time to get me some clothes that fit? Everything I've got in here are Dudley's hand-me-downs, which wouldn't be too bad except that Dudley has to be a dozen sizes larger than me at least. Everything I've got is worse than what I'm wearing." Harry didn't meet Snape's eyes.

Snape stood up and spoke brusquely. "It is likely that we will have some time to buy clothes here in Britain, or in Japan if you would like to wait." Harry smiled below his embarrassment-flushed cheeks, though Snape didn't see it.

After they left the house, Snape grabbed Harry's arm and apparated them to right outside the Ministry's visitor entrance. Stepping in and spinning the dial, _62442,_ and stated clearly "Professor Severus Snape escorting Harry Potter for Potions NEWT testing." A pair of buttons fell out of the container. Harry's read _Harry Potter, Taking a Test._

* * *

The education offices were on Level Two, which was the same level as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Harry remembered. They turned down a short hallway and went through a doorway into a small lobby. Harry trailed Snape, who marched up to the receptionist's desk. "Good day, Ms. Weyler," he greeted the young-looking woman behind the desk. "I have Harry Potter here, who is slated to take the Potions NEWT exam today."

"Hello, Professor! Though it's Mrs. Markson now, I got married five months ago." Harry thought this woman was quite chipper despite her talking to Professor Snape, one of the more hated professors at Hogwarts (Umbridge had to take the cake on that one). She also didn't seem to think it odd that Harry Potter and Professor Snape were here together, though the civility would usually have raised many eyebrows. "Let's see...Harry Potter, Room 4. Olly!"

A head of brown hair was poked through a doorway. "What is it, Janine?"

Mrs. Markson, who he inferred was named Janine, called back. "We've got a Potions NEWT in Room 4. Take 'em back for me?"

"Sure." 'Olly' stepped out from behind an office door, and gestured to them. "Mr. Potter, please follow me. Professor Snape, you may either stay here until he has completed the exam, or come back when it is complete, you know the drill."

Harry stood and followed her, while Snape just leaned back and opened up a new copy of Practical Potions.

It was a rather grueling four hours later when Harry reappeared. He had just taken a NEWT without further study than what he knew for OWLs, and his not so insignificant independent study, given the efforts he had had to make to create his little potions chest, the Dursley Survival Kit. Thankfully, he felt he passed, even did well. The final potion was an early variation of Skelegrow, which was more complicated than the real thing but didn't have one of the most expensive ingredients. Harry was quite confident he'd managed it.

And he had, with an 'O' for the practical, and an 'E' for the written, which was understandable because he hadn't really studied for NEWTs, only OWLs, and the potions themselves were what he needed most in practice, not all the theory work. He'd expected to learn that in a NEWT potions _class_. Not graduate with only one NEWT, in Potions, after fifth year. Snape was satisfied, however, which boded well for him. He knew how Snape was, after all, when he was unsatisfied.

Their next stop was the Potions Guild, where Harry was registered as Snape's apprentice, much to the general surprise, shock, curiosity, wonder, and pity of those who were there to see it. Their animosity was well-documented, after all. "Sir?" Harry asked when they were walking out of the Guild building. "Where are we going now?"

Snape kept walking. "We have time to go to Madam Malkins, perhaps, if you still require clothing. After which we will retire to my home. Muggle London will have to wait for another day, but the potions we will need for our...mutual interest will be complicated and take more than one day." He ignored the onlookers, but he was quite aware that he was in a public place with possible Death Eaters.

"Yes, sir. But sir," Harry raised his eyes under his fringe, suddenly grateful that he was neither required to ingest his potion nor use magic during the course of the day. "Can we make a quick stop at Gringotts? I'm supposed to go there as soon as possible."

Harry avoided Snape's questioning eyebrow at the last statement, and answered with his eyes trailing on the ground ahead of them as the pair continued on to Madam Malkins. "I may have been Sirius's designated heir, and Sirius may have claimed the Headship of The Ancient and Noble House of Black, and there may be a law that applied about relatives who have terms, let alone life sentences in Azkaban." Harry took a deep breath. "With that, there might have been a very interesting object in the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange, which the goblins destroyed, and noticed something similar with me but couldn't do anything unless I didn't use magic for a week or so, so that my reserves could build up and I wouldn't die while they did it if the improbable was possible?"

Snape glared at the boy and briefly entertained the idea of strangling him, before dismissing it. "You live to make my existence miserable, do you not, brat? In the time that I have known you, I have had nearly as much adventure the rest of my life combined. I have no doubt that by taking you as my apprentice, I will receive many more unpleasant shocks and surprises," now he looked at the boy calculatingly and then he smirked, "In a way, I appreciate and will undoubtedly take advantage of your ignorance of this world to both of our benefits, brat, as much as it pains me to have to deal with the situations that undoubtedly arise because of that selfsame ignorance. Let's move along now, shall we?"

They had reached Madam Malkins at this point, and walked in to the well known clothing store.

Once they got 'home' to Spinners End, hours later, Snape sent out a letter by owl to his old acquaintance. The next day, after a much needed further explanation on the subject of horcruxes and the goblins' ability to safely remove his, much to Snape's disgruntlement, they went to Gringotts.

* * *

The owl Snape had sent had finally reached its destination-in Karakura, Japan. Urahara Kisuke, recognizing the animal for what it was, shuddered before plucking the letter from the owl's leg, and ignored the owl as it summarily nipped his hand and flew away.

He placed the letter on the table in front of him before backing away a few steps. It was dangerous, that letter. He was absolutely certain of it. Thirty seconds later, after which he was reasonably certain it wasn't going to blow up or emit gases anytime soon, he inched forwards. He still wasn't sure why his danger-sense was tingling, but it most definitely was. He decided he would probably need to read the letter to find out.

His trepidation increased as he first saw the angular handwriting style.

_Kisuke,_

_I will be leaving Britain permanently with my apprentice. I expect to be in Japan fairly soon. I would appreciate it if you would see to it that the apothecary be cleaned by then. I will send a letter when the timing is more pinned down, but there are several factors that must be accounted for before our departure. The brat will be working part time in your shop. I expect that, knowing his father and godfather, he will get along splendidly with your pet cat._

_Severus_

Urahara pulled his hat further over his eyes as he frowned, contemplating both the work and the idea of teaching a mini-Severus. That was what the letter had basically said, after all: he was to clean up the shop next door and that when they arrived he was to train his apprentice, implying that the apprentice was spiritually sensitive at least, having reiryoku, and being actively capable of using reiatsu at most, though he couldn't imagine that a living child could learn much about using reiatsu.

"Tessai!" Urahara called out with not entirely false joviality as the large man appeared in the doorway. "Can you call Jinta and Ururu in for a moment? I have some new work for them to do!"

Tessai gave Urahara a stern look, and Urahara elaborated. "An old friend is coming to stay in Japan, and he and his apprentice will be staying in the apothecary next door. The main shop will need to be cleaned before he comes, and the living area as well. So I'll just tell them to get to it, ne?" As Tessai left, Urahara shuddered. The thought of Snape Severus-san taking an apprentice was fearsome. The antagonistic sarcasm the man regularly exuded was bad enough without putting a cute little innocent in the line of fire. He truly pitied whoever had to deal with the grump's perfectionism. He did like the man, who was for all his character was a genius at 'the art of potionmaking' and such things, but his social skills were nil.

* * *

In Britain, Harry Potter sneezed violently for no reason whatsoever. Snape smirked at him, and Harry scowled back. "What is it," Harry asked sharply.

"Tone, brat." Snape admonished. "I believe that my friend in Japan has received my letter, that is all. Back to work, brat."

Harry sighed, and acquiesced.


	4. 3: A Summer Horror

**Alright, everyone. Here are the facts: Harry Potter was born on 7/31/1980. Kurosaki Ichigo was born on 7/15/85. I will be working with a five year difference. These are not birthdays made up for my convenience, if you look it up these are the actual dates you will find for their birthdays.**

**Also, the prologue was a flashback to when Harry was four. The first and second chapters were during the summer after Sirius went through the Veil, when Harry is a 5th going on 6th year student. This chapter is one year later, in case that is not clear.**

**Basically, ****in the prologue, Ichigo hasn't been born yet. In the first and second chapters, Ichigo has turned 11 and Harry has turned 16 that July. In the third chapter, Ichigo has turned 12 and Harry has turned 17. Proper Bleach storyline involving Ichigo does not start until Ichigo is 15, which means more time skipping, though I will explain the ages when necessary. We will get Soul Society backstory for the next 'three years', starting in Chapter 5, though I have no plans for Ichigo to be involved until the proper appointed time unless there ends up being other considerations. I plan on tinkering with canon for Bleach, but at least have this based on it.**

******Sorry for not responding to all my reviews, I'll get to that soon. It's just been a busy week.**

* * *

Chapter 3: A Summer Horror

It had taken much longer of a time to prepare than Snape would have liked, but finally he had decided that they were ready to finally kill Voldemort. He doubted that there had been any horcrux that he had missed. Between the final death of Nagini just a week ago and the others they had perilously obtained and subsequently destroyed he was sure that the Dark Lord was too weak to make another.

It was with great surprise and equal parts suspicion that he reflected on just how easy it had been. In fact he was sure that the Dark Lord held far to much by mere reputation, and was truly a mere shadow of his former power. Which was bad for him, because people went out of their way to avoid his place of residence if they could which made security minimal.

"Well, that was anticlimactic!" the brat chirped from beside him as they stepped around one of the stunned bodies of the death eaters, of which there were practically none. He had come to terms with the idea of killing long before, both Voldemort in particular and the act in general after he was forced to admit that while Voldemort would probably have left Quirrel at one point, likely killing him, Harry had been the cause of the timing, and the actual injury that caused the death.

"Shut up." Snape growled back.

"I mean, really," the younger ignored him. "After all the trouble he went through to make all those horcruxes, and to protect them, you would think that his security would be a little better. I mean,"

"Harry, shut up." The man repeated, idly wondering if his former master had hit his apprentice with a cheering charm before his death, before drowning the image and the resulting need to laugh.

"We practically walked in. If a ton of people want you dead and you have crappy security, you're just asking to be killed! I mean," Harry prattled on, continuing to cheerfully irritate his companion.

"_Harry_." Snape's voice held a warning tone, one that would have stopped Harry in his tracks just the year before but was inexplicably ineffectual these days. It wasn't like he acted like this often, but when the boy was actually unconditionally happy, he was undeterrable.

"You would think that it would be much harder to kill the most homicidal, feared person-thing in modern history! He was so enamoured of his power, and it came to practically nothing! I mean," Harry was wondering how much longer it would be before his _Sensei_ forcibly forced him to comply. He'd pay for it later, but the feeling of the release of responsibility and blessed freedom was euphoric; he was dancing on clouds. He was high on his feelings of relief. He was also likely quite high from the refreshing lack of mental weight of the scar, it was no longer under Voldemort's ghostly influence and he had never noticed how _heavy_ it had always been.

"Potter, be silent." Harry could feel the capitals of the words 'silent', ostentatiously un-Snape-like. With the tic the man had going, he was sure to break soon.

"We just had to lop off his head, really, and do that little ritual. And you didn't have any trouble slipping him those potions, either!" Harry sneaked a look over at his Shishou, cackling inwardly. This was probably the only time he'd get away with something like this and not be silenced immediately, and to say he was slightly giddy at the thought of Voldemort's menace finally being finished was more than mere understatement. It might have overridden the controls on his suicidal tendencies in the process.

"Mr. Potter." Snape finally broke.

"Yeah?" Harry replied cheerfully, possibly suicidally. He reflected that that was probably not the best response, especially with his familiarity with Snape's long-term preferences.

"Silencio." And then there was blessed silence.

Three days later, an owl winged itself over to Japan, and the Master and apprentice pair started to pack away their little hideout.

* * *

Most of the time, Urahara loved the summertime. Summer meant that it was warm enough to relax outside, that he would be surrounded by life, and that he could contemplate the world at his leisure. It meant more revenue for the non-soul parts of his shop, given that without school there were more children buying candy all the time. Summer was delicate but untouched. Summer was generally headache free. That, unfortunately, did not apply to this summer in particular.

Snape Severus was coming to Japan this summer, moving right next door. It had been nearly a year since that first letter, the one where Snape-san had first told him that he and his apprentice were coming to Japan, and he had felt the clock ticking down ever since. The cute little apprentice he had first mentioned had had daily exposure to Snape-san's rather caustic wit and sarcasm for a whole year! The poor thing had had to deal with the man's over-perfectionism for a year! All to learn the 'fine art of potions' from the man. He pitied the apprentice, truly. Snape-san was someone who was best dealt with in small doses with a great deal of recovery time. A year, for example. Perhaps two. And the man was to be his neighbor for the foreseeable future-he pitied himself.

Not to say he didn't appreciate the _art_ or the potions themselves, because he truly did. Sobriety potions, calming draughts and headache relief draughts in particular, though muscle relaxants and general healing types didn't go amiss after training or a long day of inventing stooped over a table. That was the point at which he was thankful for what Snape-san did.

Casting around for something positive, anything at all, he remembered the antagonism between Snape-san and Isshin. Well, not exactly antagonism given that Snape despised Isshin for his usual attitude, and Isshin feared Snape for his. He couldn't wait to see what happened when the pair met again. He wouldn't be telling Isshin about this after all.

Bleakly, he glared again at the paper before him, hoping that he had truly misread it and knowing he hadn't. He was too young to be dealing with this sort of stress! He might be several centuries old, yes, but he was most definitely too young!

_Kisuke,_

_My apprentice and I will be arriving in Japan tomorrow afternoon. I appreciate and anticipate a dinner between old friends. Bring the cat, I fear she will get along with the boy._

_Severus_

The letter was just as cryptic as the first time he read it. He idly wondered if Snape-san had to work to get it that way as a child, or if it came naturally, worrying about the final quiver-inducing sentence.

"Kisuke?" The voice was masculine, and easily recognizable as cat-Yoruichi.

Urahara smiled in his usual mysterious way. "Yoruichi-just who I was thinking about. Care to join me for tea?"

Yoruichi poofed back into human form before throwing on some clothes and sitting down across from him. "What do you want this time, Kisuke?"

"I? Nothing, truly." Yoruichi glared at him, Urahara looked back bemusedly before his voice became serious. "Snape-san is finally coming to Japan, and he is going to be over for dinner tonight. He has also specifically requested your attendance. He apparently believes that you'll find his apprentice interesting, to sat the least of the matter."

There was a loud thunk as Yoruichi hit the table with her hand, and Urahara spared a moment of thanks for its structural integrity. Yoruichi grinned as she taunted him. "What's this? The old bat's actually taken an apprentice? You poor, poor man, you must be dreading the experience! Just that information alone is interesting, but-"

"Yoruichi." He warned her, stopping her excited babble. "He wants us to train his apprentice in his free time."

"Train him?" Yoruichi wet her lips. "The apprentice has reiatsu?"

Urahara folded his hands in front of him and nodded. "Indeed, he has noticed a rather large reiatsu coming from the boy, one he feels is being partially blocked by the boy's body and will be abnormally large should the boy leave it. He wishes the boy trained and seems to think that it will eventually become necessary for the boy to be able to fight that way." Urahara paused in the ensuing silence. "He even told me, in confidence, that if he had not known both of the boy's parents from his own school days he would have said that the boy was shinketsu."

Yoruichi threw him a disbelieving look. "Shinketsu? Really? I know that Sev wouldn't exaggerate about these things, but does he really think it would be possible for the boy to be shinketsu?"

"Shinketsu or a reincarnation, though how the latter would work I don't really know. Maybe something different entirely, you know how the Research Department gets at times. The boy...frustrates him. He won't explain further about that, so I expect we will find out when they arrive. Mayhap, the facts are that the boy can see hollows, and has apparently always seen them if 'not being able to remember not seeing them' means anything." Urahara looked up pensively. "The odd thing, no, the disturbing thing is that the boy said that the hollows had not been able to see him if he didn't want them to."

Yoruichi contemplated this, intelligence flashing through her eyes. For all her earlier brevity, she could comprehend the enormity of the issue at hand. "And no one has ever encountered him? Seen him, even?" She shook her head. "With reiatsu, hollows would most definitely flock to the area, even in Britain. It's impossible that there has been no one."

Kisuke held her eyes for a moment as he solemnly replied, "I never said that he didn't encounter them, I said that they didn't encounter him, or don't remember it. The boy could hide himself from them rather thoroughly."

Yoruichi groaned as she processed all of the implications. "I've a headache coming on. When are they expected, anyway?"

"Soon." Urahara smiled. "On the downside, we don't have any more headache relief draughts. On the upside, we've got a Potions Master moving in next door!"

"Who will probably charge full price, Kisuke." Yoruichi replied dryly. "And cause as many headaches as he fixes as far as you're concerned. They'll be fresher, but not much else."

"My poor wallet!" Urahara cried pitifully. "He is going to bankrupt me, and laugh while he does it!"

Yoruichi spared a look of disbelief before shaking her head and going downstairs to train awhile. It wouldn't do to be rusty when training a newbie.

* * *

Snape had timed the owl well, and the pair had arrived in Japan on the day that Urahara expected them to. He was sure the man was quaking in his noisy clogs, and likely jumping at every small noise. The imagined image was amusing enough.

He had to admit, muggles were amusing at times. More than amusing, really. A small shine of mischief had made its way to his eyes as he caught sight of one particularly odd, though too annoyingly loud to be amusing, somewhat-muggle. It didn't help that Kurosaki Isshin, the goofy patriarch and general pain in the arse was quite terrified of him. It was the man's only redeeming quality, unless he had a true emergency on his hands. He briefly imagined the man's reaction to seeing him here, and revised his travel plans. It seemed that he and Harry would be making a pitstop before they reached the Urahara Shoten and their little apothecary.

Snape snickered under his breath in a rare outward show of mirth, much to the amusement of his apprentice. And apprehension, given that Harry didn't know what they were walking into. "Sir?" He inquired.

Snape straightened and made a little unconscious movement that would have straightened his robes if he had been wearing them (they were in a muggle town, after all) and replied, "Brat, imitate me to the best of your limited abilities for the next person we are going to meet." Seeing the sly look in Harry's eyes right next to the curious countenance, he continued, "If it is a credible imitation, you will have a weekend to yourself." The sly look disappeared, and Snape was not going to slake his curiosity given the proximity to Kurosaki. He could see how well Harry would have done in Slytherin had the fool boy not borne the ridiculous title of 'The Boy Who Lived' in a house comprised of many second and third generation death eaters to be.

Harry smirked nastily and straightened his pace what little he could. "As you wish, Potions Master Snape."

"Good brat." He contemplated patting the boy on the head, but decided that the action was more suited to the boy's dogfather than the boy and stayed his hand. Snape felt Harry follow him closely as he entered into the clinic.

A set of bells rang as they passed through the door. "Just a minute!" A voice called back at them. He recognized the man's voice as coming from a back room, perhaps a storage area. The man appeared moments later, a wide grin adorning his face. Snape assumed that it was for the undoubtedly nervous kids who came in here; the man did have a degree in pediatrics. "Welcome to the Kurosaki Clinic! What can I help you wi-ih..." That was the moment that the man, Kurosaki Isshin, caught sight of exactly who his visitors were and abruptly erupted into stutters that would have made Quirrel proud. Snape basked briefly in the man's fear and horror.

Fear and horror always have a different taste when it comes from sources other than his being a death eater, a committer of atrocities. No, this man was afraid of him because of his temper, and possibly the pranks he had subjected the man to, and even that was underlaid by other emotions-a bit of respect perhaps, or trust. This man did not feel the same fear of him as England did, as he had once needed England to. If things got serious, this man would not be stuttering in his presence. He knew about needing to put up a front, after all. Kurosaki Isshin had once been a very different man. He also understood grief.

For now, the conversation was relatively light. "Good afternoon, Kurosaki-san." Snape drawled out, "I thought it wise that my apprentice know of your clinic in case of emergencies during which neither Urahara-san nor I can be reached or are unable to assist in solving." He beckoned Harry forward a couple steps. "Apprentice, introduce yourself."

Harry met Isshin's wide-eyed look dispassionately as the man swiveled to take him in. "Good Afternoon, Kurosaki-san, was it?" At the man's nod, he continued. "I am Potions Apprentice Potter Harry. It is a...pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kurosaki-san." Harry spoke smoothly in an extremely credible imitation of Snape's tone, to the man's utmost horror.

Isshin nodded weakly as the younger dark-haired figure _menace_ made a quick show of surveying the room. The two of them shared identical smirks that further discomfited him. "We will be seeing you another time, Kurosaki-san." Snape's lips quirked as the man hastily stammered a farewell and the pair departed from the place, much to Isshin's relief.

As Snape continued, he decided to pay another old friend a visit. Kurosaki had undoubtedly called Urahara to inform the man of the coming horrors, and Snape was content to let Urahara stew for a while. Thus, he led Harry out towards the Karakura General Hospital, in which Ishida Ryuuken worked.

* * *

Back in the Kurosaki Clinic, Isshin did exactly as Snape had predicted he would. After waiting a few moments to be certain that his visitors were gone for now, he made a mad dash for the phone. He had to attempt to dial three times because he was pushing buttons so quickly that they were barely registering in the machine. The phone rang twice, three times, four, before Urahara picked it up on the other side. "Isshin, what-"

Isshin cut the other man off. "Kisuke," he half-moaned painfully, half-whined, "Why didn't you mention that Snape and a mini-Snape clone were coming to torture me?" Realizing as he complained that there was no good answer to his question, he hung up with an unnecessarily loud thunk and sank to the ground. He was trying in vain to forget the events that had transpired in his front room that afternoon. He soon realized that however much he feared that man's temper, and with good reason, his kids were coming home soon. Soon enough he'd have another patient to take care of.

He immersed himself in his work to get Snape out of his head.

On the other side of the now-closed phone line, Urahara stared at the walls in unseeing horror. His worst nightmares were coming true. He had tried to imagine Snape's apprentice as an innocent who could be saved from Snape's manner, not one who emulated his mentor's clipped tones and irony. Now these two people were coming to be his neighbors for the summer at least, likely much longer.

It suddenly occurred to him that if Severus had introduced his apprentice to Isshin, it was possible (and, indeed, quite likely) that he would also introduce his apprentice to Ryuuken. He might even have the boy learn from the often cool man, furthering the threat to the boy. Urahara made a quick call to an Isshin who was bravely pulling himself back together. The thump that indicated a person falling from the other side was not very reassuring. Urahara closed the connection and decided that it might be a good idea to pray before the Potions Master arrived.

He would need the favor of any god he could scrounge up to survive two of them.


	5. 4: An Important Introduction

**Minor Edit: Thanks to RandomAsRainbow for pointing out my mistake.**

Chapter 4: An Important Introduction

After obtaining directions to the Director's office from a harried-looking nurse, Snape and Harry picked their way through the meandering hallways of the hospital to find it. The venture took far longer than Snape imagined it would, and the end of it found them closer to an entrance to the hospital than he believed possible given the amount of walking involved. He knocked three times on the door before stepping back. A muffled 'enter' came from the other side of the door, and the pair of them walked in to the office.

The office was very organized. Grey filing cabinets lined part of the wall, and the papers that were on his desk or in trays atop the filing cabinets were tidy and squared off. A briefcase leaned against the desk, visible from the door. Ishida Ryuuken was white-haired, but that was likely from stress and not the process of aging, if not a set of unlikely genetics. He was, like Snape, prematurely aged. His suit was crisply tidy, and it seemed as if there was nothing out of place. The messiest thing in the room was Harry's hair.

The man was just looking up from a series of reports containing complaints and requests from the staff. He was in the middle of sorting them. The trash pile was suspiciously high. He barely looked up as the room was entered. He did not, in fact, register that the person who knocked was not a nurse with some problem to be solved by him until Snape spoke. "Ah, Ryuuken. Hard at work, as per usual." His English accent was obvious, his drawling voice characteristic. Ryuuken couldn't help but to recognize him.

Ryuuken unbent from his position leaning over his desk and sat back. "Severus." His voice conveyed happy surprise. "It has been entirely too long since I saw you last. " Ryuuken had stood up behind his desk, and reached out over it to clasp Snape's hand by the wrist in greeting. "How have you been? And how long are you planning on staying this time before you disappear again, you great bat?"

"Great bat? That sounds incredibly familiar, Sensei." The voice was soft in tone, obviously not trying to interrupt the moment overmuch.

Ryuuken angled towards the voice to see a young man, obviously a teenager, with black hair that showed hints of being grown out and a pale complexion. The boy's eyes were bright; to say they were green was to say the sun was bright at noon on a cloudless day. They were intense eyes, pessimist eyes, eyes far too old for that young face, too old for any young face. He took in a few more minor details as he blinked repeatedly, trying to rid the image of the haunting eyes. "Kami above, it's a mini-Snape. Does he share in your wit, Severus?"

Snape grimaced. "We are not so similar, Ryuuken. Neither in appearance nor in personality. Although," A small smile curved his lips as he continued, "as far as Urahara can guess, he has my personality in spades and Kurosaki has likely convinced himself by now that he is either my younger brother or my son. Both will be undoubtedly entertaining when we get around to spending time with them."

Ryuuken nearly snorted with the force of his amusement. Eyes flashing, he replied candidly. By that you mean that you dropped in on Kurosaki without warning and terrified him so thoroughly that his poster couldn't console him and he fried what few wits he was still possessed of."

"How could I resist, knowing the entertainment value Isshin is sure to have?" Snape quirked an eyebrow. "What poster?"

"Masaki's poster." Ryuuken turned away. "I know you know he married Masaki, I believe they were dating at least before you left for England again. She died a little more than three years ago, during an...attack." At the last word he hesitated, eyes flicking over to the as-of-yet unnamed boy.

"A hollow attack?" Snape replied, clearly surprised. "Isn't Masaki able to defend herself rather well from the kind of hollows that would be roaming around the Living World?"

Ryuuken shook his head. If Snape was fine going on about hollows in front of his apprentice, who was showing a remarkable lack of reaction, the boy must know about them already. "She was. She was also protecting her son, her eldest child. He has quite a bit of reiatsu, so he was able to see the hollow and decided to go after it. From what Kurosaki and I found out, it was Grand Fisher. It is a rather notorious hollow known to have consumed many souls, including several trained shinigami, mainly women. The hollow has a feeler, antennae, some sort of protrusion. On the end of the protrusion it can form an image of someone, anyone. From what we got from Ichigo, her son, afterwards, was that he was stopping a little girl from drowning in the river and saw the monster when he turned around. Masaki got between him and the monster it seems, but didn't have the time to defend herself. Ichigo passed out, possibly from shock or hitting his head on the sidewalk, we'll never know. When he woke up, she was dead."

Snape's head bowed in a brief mourning for an old friend while the boy stood stiffly, hands clenching and unclenching helplessly. After a few moments of silence to remember her, Snape straightened his neck.

"The cemetery is easy enough to find if you want to pay your respects, Severus." Ryuuken said quietly. "Either way, I'm sure that both Kurosaki and Urahara are having nightmares because of you."

"Urahara especially." Snape replied. "I planned on opening an apothecary in the shop next to the Shoten. Urahara has no chance."

"Of course not. It's quite easy to put him into that position, as I'm sure you remember." The lingering tension had all but dissolved by this point. "Would you mind introducing your companion, Severus?"

"Of course." Snape motioned to Harry. "Allow me to introduce my apprentice, Potter Harry."

Harry dipped into a quick bow. "Sensei has told me much about you, Ishida-san. It's a pleasure to meet you." His voice was as polite as he could make it.

"And you, Potter-kun." Ryuuken nodded at Harry. "Severus, you will be busy setting up your shop. I assure you, however, that my son will be more than able to show you around town. Since your shop is next to the Urahara Shoten, it won't be difficult for him to find."

"Thank you, Ryuuken. Tonight we will be terrorizing Urahara, but my apprentice has the weekend off. If your son can spare the time to come on Saturday?"

"He will be there around ten in the morning on Saturday. The shops will all have opened by then if it turns out that you did forget to bring some items, or need replacements." Ryuuken inquired

"That would be acceptable." Snape acquiesced.

Ryuuken walked back around his desk and sat, clasping his hands together. "Good day, Severus,."

"Good day, Ryuuken." Snape turned and walked from the room.

"Good day, Ishida-san." Harry called the pleasantry out behind him as he hurried to keep up with Snape.

As the door shut, so did Ryuuken's eyes. His normally serene features remained impassive, but he was smirking rather nastily in his head. Kurosaki and Urahara didn't have a chance at peace so long as the master-apprentice pair were still in Karakura. Personally, and perhaps a bit vindictively, he hoped that the two never left. He picked up his desk phone and dialed his son's cell number. The boy was past regular school hours, and was likely at home or at an after-school club. "Uryuu, please come to my hospital office when you can. I have something that needs to be urgently discussed with you." After hearing an acquiesce, he hung up. He would be seeing his son soon, after all. He could barely hold in his chuckled. Kurosaki and Urahara were sure entertainment, especially Kurosaki.

* * *

"When are they supposed to get here, Kisuke?" Yoruichi was laying on a blanket in the sitting room. Her head was propped up on her hand as she glanced at Urahara, looking away from the door. She was growing impatient to see Sev and his apprentice. Really, it was their first day in Karakura; they hadn't even unpacked yet. Where could they have gone, anyway? "Kisuke, are you listening to me?"

Urahara ignored her. She had been going on and on for almost an hour. Severus hadn't given them an exact time, which was annoying because despite the man's other faults, he was obsessively punctual. If this went on much longer, Yoruichi was going to get twitchy, and perhaps destroy part of the basement again. Or get mischievous, and wouldn't that be worse-

"Kisuke, look! A bat and a mini-bat!" Missing from Yoruichi's voice was the irritation, and Urahara whirled around towards the door, nearly dropping his tea. He was half-way to standing when he realized that there was, indeed, no one there.

He'd been had. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on," he muttered petulantly in a quiet tone. "That was mean, Yoruichi-chan!" he whined more loudly.

"It got you moving, didn't it?" Yoruichi smirked playfully at her old friend. "It served it's purpose. I do believe I disabused you of the notion that I was nice a good long time ago."

Urahara's return under-the-hat glare at Yoruichi was interrupted by a child's voice with a choking English accent. "Sensei, if this is Shihoin-sama, then I do believe that we will get along quite well."

The boy who had spoken was standing next to a much-aged Snape Severus. Yoruichi's first observation was that the rather vertically-challenged youth was Sev's apprentice. The second..."Aww, he's so cute!" Yoruichi pushed herself off of the ground and threw the boy a grin. "And he's just so polite! Sev, can I have him? Pretty please?"

Snape's mouth firmed. "We will have this discussion later, Shihoin." Unluckily for her, Snape was resistant to her pout and kitten-eyes, which he merely ignored as he turned to Urahara. "Kisuke, it's been a long time. And you as well, Shihoin. You both seem to be doing well enough."

Yoruichi was not one to be deterred, however. "But, Sev!" She grabbed Harry and pressed him into a tight hug. "Pretty please?"

"Why should I share my apprentice with you, Shihoin?" His eyes were firm, serious, and he shared none of Urahara's amusement or Yoruichi's excitement. "You forwent taking care of yours, leaving her behind nary so much as a note much less asking her what she wanted to do when you all left. Why should I let you anywhere near mine?"

Yoruichi's countenance darkened as Snape's barb hit home, as Snape's were apt to do. "Soi Fon was not my apprentice. She was a member of my corps. She was someone I looked in on, yes, someone I cared for, yes, but she was not my apprentice. The closest thing I had to an apprentice was bucket-hat over there. Moreover," She protested, "I am the Goddess of Flash, an ex-captain of the second division, ex-head of Onmitsukido and various subdivisions of it, as well as born into a clan where we learned all sorts of histories and things. Think of what I could get away teaching him, if he were my apprentice!" She looked back at the man she was trying to convince. "Please, Sev?"

She amended her earlier exclamation to Kisuke. The boy she was currently clutching was not a mini-bat, no matter how much he looked like Sev. He was a kitten. As a cat, it was her right to teach the little kittens. Sev didn't have to be so difficult about all this, did he? She was a huge resource to any person she chose to teach, after all. If the kid had the kind of reiryoku and whatever powers beside that Sev thought, in the end it would be impossible to keep Soul Society's noses out of it for too long. Even with the kind of training that they gave Onmitsukido, and knowing how the Soul Society would go about finding him if rumor ever made it back to their mills.

Luckily for her, Snape's features slid into amusement. "Yoruichi, please release the boy, he's turning blue." Yoruichi loosened her hold on him reluctantly, feeling a flare of hope that she hoped meant that she had won the argument, a thought that was quickly shattered by Snape's continuation, "You can't have him-" She groaned, disappointed. "Though, if you both are agreed, you may teach him during the time when he is not busy studying or doing work for me. Given that it's his own free time, I will not begrudge his choice to learn from you, whatever you wish to teach him being up to you, of course."

Yoruichi grinned widely in the way that had once made a squad of Onmitsukido actually back up without any reiatsu involved. "I _do_ get the green-eyed kitty to train." She pulled Harry close again, and nuzzled his face. Harry was doing his best not to blush, but was not doing well with superimposing his confusion over his embarrassment, especially given how closely the two were twined. "A little kitten to pamper and push." She let go of Harry in favor of embracing Snape, failing to embarrass him given his relative height even in comparison to the rather tall woman. "He's going to be a proper mini-me by the time we're done!"She glanced at Snape and amended, "In skills, anyway. Either way, I won't be dealing with boredom anytime soon. Watching Kisuke sweat because of you does get repetitive after a time."

Snape's amusement held through. "So long as you do remember that he is nominally my apprentice, and that I plan on having him able to attain his own Mastery in potionmaking in the next few years, a half-decade at most."

"Of course, of course," Yoruichi agreed, almost absently. Her oddly-colored eyes were studying the boy, deciding on what might be best to do first. Sev had asked her to come for the boy's sake, after all. She hadn't been nearly as close to him as he and Kisuke had been, and it was only proper that the two estranged friends catch up with each other before she did. It also got the boy out from underfoot as they did it.

"Get out of here, cat." Snape rolled his eyes, but given that he was behind Yoruichi, she didn't see it. "And take the brat with you. He'll be suffering from jet-lag, and will likely need to be worn out before he gets to sleep if he is to get on a reasonable schedule for this time zone quickly. Either way, given that it feels like early afternoon, he's wide awake. It should take the rest of the week to unpack, but he has this weekend free. If either of you try to keep him when he's supposed to be working with me, you will be restricted from training him for the rest of the year."

Yoruichi crossed her arms. "Alright, you great bat. We've got it. Kitty's gotta be back at your shop when kitty's supposed to be back at your shop. Can I at least have all his weekends for my training?"

"That would be acceptable," Snape inclined his head. "From midnight on Fridays to six in the morning on Mondays for the forseeable future, he is yours, barring special circumstances and the full and dark moons. Those will be up for negotiation. Furthermore, you may not make the assumption that he will sleep only during my appointed times."

Yoruichi acknowledged Snape's conditions, and called behind her to the boy, "Follow me. And tell me your name, little kitty."

After a quick look back at his sensei, Harry followed the woman who had just claimed the rest of his time. "I'm Potter Harry, Shihoin-sama," He called down in front of him as he climbed down the ladder to the much-expanded basement, closing the trapdoor above him.

Silence reigned the sitting room for a few moments before conversation picked up between Urahara and Snape. Urahara poured Snape a half-saucer of sake, which he quickly took a sip of.

"Thank you," Snape managed, sighing deeply. "That-brat lives solely to provide me with reason to brew headache relievers in large cauldrons. When it is relatively safe to do so, alcohol is a necessity. This is the good kind, no?"

"It is," Urahara smiled beneath his hat. "I wasn't sure you would recognize it as such, Severus. It has been far too long since we have last seen each other. So tell me, old friend," Urahara stopped to pour them both a second saucer, this one fuller. "What is so troublesome? Is it about the boy?"

Snape snorted. "What is troublesome about the brat, indeed! I have no idea what possessed me to take such a troublesome brat as my apprentice. I must have taken complete leave of my senses, that is the only way to explain it!" He took a sip of the sake, savoring it. "The boy delights in causing heart attacks, he always has. Even when he was a baby! With a single year under his belt, at an age where most brats just scream, cry, sleep, eat, and require diaper changes, he survived the Killing Curse. The Killing Curse, of all things!" Snape knocked back the rest of the saucer, feeling that he'd need the fortitude it would bring if he were to tell all the stories of what the brat had managed to do.

Urahara choked on his alcohol, a little bit sloshing over the side as his hand jerked in surprise. "The Killing Curse? That's impossible, Severus. The boy-your apprentice survived the wizards' ultimate one-hit-kill technique? How in this world did that happen?"

Snape smirked, smug at having gotten one over the tricky ex-shinigami captain. "He definitely did, and he has the scar to prove it. Now, shall I begin on his Hogwarts years? I am not privy to the details of what has happened before them, the boy is extremely close-lipped, but I am certain that his...escapades, shall we call them, are no less surprising."

"Indeed?" Urahara looked at him, eyes shadowed. "Get on with it, then. This is bound to be interesting."

"Indeed." Snape poured this round of sake. "Shall we begin with his acceptance letters? Yes, I do mean letters, plural, and didn't Minerva have _fun _with those. I heard, though second hand and a while after it happened, that she ended up sending upwards of four hundred of them, before she finally broke down and asked Albus to send someone to him on his birthday, which is only a month before the school year began. I truly believed it wholesale falsehood until Harry told me otherwise. He claims that she even sent two dozen of them inside of eggs, for whatever reason..."


	6. 5: A Broken Fall

Chapter 5: A Broken Fall

Just a few moments ago, he had been laughing as he faced off in a duel against his insane cousin. He had even gotten one on mad Bellatrix. But...he'd gotten cocky. _Too cocky._ The last thing he had heard as he fell through the Veil (_and when had _that_ gotten there anyway) _was his godson's voice as he screamed out his name. His godson, whom he had gone to the Ministry to save. His godson, whom he had failed. Time stretched and shrank on him until he hadn't been sure how long he was falling, nor how long he would have until it stopped, if it ever stopped.

And then he saw a blue sky, nary a cloud. The sun was especially bright in his eyes after so long, and he closed them-before he fell jarringly onto the ground. For a moment he was shocked, given that he barely remembered what it was like to have solid ground beneath his feet. Except that his 'solid ground' that was moving, not entirely solid.

It was at that moment that the pain from landing as he did overcame the shock and he expelled an expletive. "Damn it!" Sirius shifted, trying to get to his feet and figure out where he was. He may have missed the first exclamation of hurt of the person he had fallen on, but the second one completely jolted him back to reality.

"Itai!" shouted the person who was beneath him. It was a young man, perhaps in his late twenties, he'd never been good at guessing ages. His eyes were shut, either only open enough to see what was going on but not to reveal his irises or completely shut, however that worked. More shocking was his grey hair, nearing white at some areas.

"Gin? Are you alright?" Aizen had only been a block away when he felt a disturbance suddenly appear near Gin, and had quickly shunpoed over to see what had happened. He was momentarily surprised to see a man, thin with an unhealthy-looking mass of dark hair, laying atop his ally and former apprentice. As the stranger grumbled, something about killing a woman named Bellatrix and something else about a girl named Hari, tried to extricate himself from the situation, the surprise had turned to amusement and curiosity.

"I'm fine, Aizen-taicho." Gin replied with a small eye-smile. He had finally untangled himself from the man who had somehow fallen from the sky, or a nearby roof at the very least. He held out a hand to the man when he was upright, and the man took it. Interesting-must be new to Soul Society. Most people didn't trust a hand from a shinigami unless it was someone they had known prior to their having become a soldier.

"Who are you, if I may ask?" Aizen asked the question, but both turned towards the civilian inquiringly. The man didn't answer for a long moment.

Sirius was confused. At one point he fallen _been pushed _into the blasted Veil, he was sure he understood language. This was not proper english of any variety, this was something else entirely. First he decided to try to see if they could understand him even if he couldn't understand him. "Hello? Who are you, and where are we?" After not garnering any sort of response, he tried again. "Can you understand me?"

Gin did not recognize the language at all. Aizen, however, had had a stint or two in England a few years back, and so recognized the language. Luckily for him, he had long since learned it, a necessity when working in a different country with a different language. It was with this breadth of experience that he replied. "I can understand you, however my comrade does not know your language. " He paused long enough to see a grudging nod. "My name is Aizen Sosuke, or in your culture Sosuke Aizen. I would prefer if you called me Aizen-san. My comrade is Ichimaru Gin. As for this place, we are in Rukongai. You must have died recently and had a shinigami perform a konso on you in the Living World to come here."

Sirius interrupted Aizen, who let him go on indulgently. "But I didn't die, exactly. I just fell through the Veil. And what in Merlin's name is a shinigami, or a konso?"

Aizen smiled charismatically. "There will be time for explanations for your questions and more later. I believe that, given the unusual circumstances surrounding your arrival to the Soul Society, we would be best served by bringing you to the Seireitei, where we can inform Yamamoto-soutaicho and the other captains of your appearance." He did a quick scan of Black-san's reiatsu, and found more than he expected. "We can also make arrangements for where you will stay while we are there. With the levels of reiatsu you currently have, it would be dangerous to leave you in Rukongai for very long, especially with no source of income for the food you will undoubtedly need.

He gave the man a second once over as the man gave an affirmative. The malnutrition was very obvious, even in the somewhat tattered clothes he recognized from his time in England. It was quite odd to see these sorts of clothes in Rukongai, where yukata are the most common type of clothing. He met the man's grey eyes and felt a sort of deja vu. If Black-san was clean and in a different, more fitting for this culture type of clothing, he would almost think he was looking at a member of the Kuchiki family. It was decidedly unnerving to see someone who looked like the recently frozen Kuchiki Byakuya looking up at him in such a sorry state as Black-san was in. He wondered idly how the captains would react to him, and if they would see any resemblance or if it were his imagination.

Then again, he thought as he dragged Black-san across roofs in a burst of shunpo, it wouldn't be all that long before he got to see those reactions. There was a Captains Meeting scheduled for this afternoon, after all, and it would be a perfect time to introduce Black-san. His circumstances were interesting as well, especially because it seemed that Black-san had retained all of his memories from his previous life. That could possibly be a fluke, but he wanted to find out more about the Veil that he had mentioned before passing judgement on that.

There had to be something odd going on for a British citizen dying in Britain to show up in_ Japanese_ Soul Society, instead of the other one that he should have gone to. He was fairly certain that there was a separate Soul Society near Britain and that covered surrounding countries. He thought he remembered it as being Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, and Britain, but he was not entirely certain. It had been a low priority at the time.

Either way, though it was possible to reach different Soul Societies from the same realm, without viable long-distance methods (most shinigami couldn't do extended shunpo, and the ones that did generally would exhaust themselves eventually) it was relatively impossible to reach one settlement from another unless you were in the Living World using a gigai or similar technology usually and the Living World's transportation systems to get a Senkaimon near the correct place. The only reason he knew _that _tidbit was because he had met a small team of shinigami, called soul reapers by that faction, who had explained it to him when he had asked.

He sensed several of the Captains' reiatsus moving towards the First Division and figured that it was about time for the Captain's Meeting. Gin followed closely behind him as he dragged Black-san into the hall behind him. Though he got many inquisitive looks, some downright suspicious, all of the regular business that usually saw people drooling, though whether they were adept at hiding it or not was another story, was completed and summarily shoved out of the way beforehand. That worked, given that this was likely to be an issue given significant consideration.

A short period of silence separated the different sorts of busniess, during which every eye in the building came to be completely focused on Aizen. He smiled kindly, standing tall under the attention if not outright basking in it. He returned the favor threefold. "Captains, this man is Black Sirius. He came to Soul Society recently, and in a very unconventional way inasmuch as I understand..." He proceeded to spend the next few minutes summarizing what he knew of how Black-san had come to Soul Society and his interactions with the man. Kurotsuchi left briefly, under instructions to find an old experiment he remembered that would apparently help Black-san understand their language.

Surprisingly, it was Kenpachi who broke the silence. Perhaps not so surprisingly, because while the man was hardly eloquent, the Eleventh Division was nothing if not extremely direct. They were painfully blunt about whatever was on their small minds regularly. This particular statement was obviously not upheld by a modicum of thought, which is why it possibly provoked the reaction it had. "So, Kuchiki-hime, got yourself a twin we don't know about?"

Usually Kuchiki Byakuya would barely twitch longsufferingly at the moniker, long since having gotten used to Zaraki's crass diction. Though given the rest of his pronouncement, it was perhaps expected that he would level the acid glare that he did at his fellow Captain. His composure flickered back to its characteristic impassiveness after a bare moment, and he responded. "The Kuchiki Family is _a_ _noble_ _clan_, Zaraki. We are born and raised in the Soul Society, usually within the Seireitei." He emphasized it slowly, as if he were talking to a child that wasn't Yachiru. "This man is recently of the Living World. Therefore any resemblance is superficial and greatly exaggerated."

This being a verbal fight that would only be unnecessarily tedious and impossible to win against the resolved Kuchiki, Kenpachi backed down. He knew from experience that he couldn't try for a fight during a meeting, troublesome as it was he'd have to catch Kuchiki another time. "Geez, Hime. He muttered as he turned away. "Don't need to be so damn touchy 'bout it."

It was at this point that Kurotsuchi shunpoed back into the meeting hall, carrying some sort of earpiece that apparently would help him understand the language and internalize it fairly quickly. Decidedly wary of anything that the rather odd captain had brought, Sirius had accepted the item with a lack of grace and an even more obvious lack of understanding. Aizen translated in English to explain to Sirius what it was for, and so he put it over his left ear, grudgingly recognizing that he would need to know the language regardless of what happened next.

"Irregardless," Aizen raised his voice to be heard over the general chatter that followed Byakuya and Kenpachi's argument had provoked. "Of any possible relation to the Kuchiki Clan, which we might as well test for, waste of time as you believe it to be, Kuchiki-taicho. Black-san still needs a place to stay for the time being. Preferably in the Seireitei, given the amount of reiatsu he possesses. Given the correct training, he could possibly even become a competent shinigami." His eyes strayed from one member in the assembly to another.

"It is quite obvious from the way he entered the Soul Society that however he came here, he will not be leaving us by the same way. That is to say that his body is still alive, of course, and not having died or been lost on his way here. Given that he did not come through a gate that specifically allowed matter through, it is quite likely that he is stuck here, having died either in the Living World or in transit."

The hall was fraught with an awkward silence. Aizen was sure the if Ukitake-taicho weren't sick right now, he would have offered the Thirteenth, or Kyouraku-taicho the Eighth, but things being as they were at the moment, it was likely that they didn't want Ukitake to be overstressed. Kurotsuchi had been summarily shot down in the first few seconds in favor of not letting him experiment on the newcomer.

Sirius suddenly snorted. "Isn't this awkward. Am I truly that unappealing?"

Zaraki grinned maniacally. Black Sirius seemed to be an interesting person, one who might enjoy a good fight like his squad could.

"If the tension in here was any more potent," Sirius drawled sarcastically, "I could cut it with a regular knife, let alone one of those fancy swords of yours." He was curious, bored, and confused-a bad combination, as any Hogwarts teacher who survived his seven years could tell you.

"The Eleventh'll take him." Kenpachi kept grinning as he saw the looks being shot at both him and Black. Several uneasy glances between different Captains clearly displayed their discomfort about letting Kenpachi at the new guy. Especially Kurotsuchi, who didn't want to lose a potentially valuable and useful specimen to the violent ministrations the Eleventh Division were known for.

"What's with that reaction?" Sirius questioned. "Would it really be that bad for me to go with the big guy over there?" Seeing the further opposition, he decided to try another tact.

"So, why don't you just stick me with Aizen over there, or Ichimaru? Even if I don't know them that well, I've had a conversation with them and that's more than I can say for any of you all. Besides, if I hadn't fallen on them, then who knows when you all would have found out about me?" He grinned mischievously. "Then again, it should really be Ichimaru. I did have a head on collision with him, not Aizen, and so it's mainly his fault that I'm here. Don't worry, I'll try not to give anyone any concussions in that way again."

Gin cocked his head slightly, eyes still shut and mouth stretched in a thin smile. "Eh, I don' see why not." He glanced at Aizen next to him, who merely shook his head slightly.

"Are there any objections to Black Sirius-san staying in the Third Division for the duration?" Kurotsuchi's whiny positive was drowned by the negatives of the other captains and summarily ignored. "Very well then." The soutaicho rapped his cane sharply against the ground as a decision was reached. "Black Sirius-san will spend the duration of his time in the Seireitei attached to the Third Division. If he is truly as promising as Aizen-taicho believes, then Ichimaru-taicho will be responsible for procuring a tutor in the shinigami arts for Black-san. Should he ever become an active shinigami, unless there is further contention at that time he will do so as part of the Third Division." He rapped his cane again. "Is that clear?"

"Crystal, old man." Sirius smirked.

Yamamoto twitched slightly as he adjourned the meeting and dismissed the Captains. Ichimaru dragged Sirius along to the Third Division post-haste. If the soutaicho had decided to get angry at Sirius's less-than-respectful remark, he wanted to be well and truly out of the blast zone.

* * *

A significant amount of sake had been drunk and Snape was getting to be quite hoarse by the time he finished detailing what he knew from Harry's school years and the time they had spent together the previous year preparing to finally kill Voldemort.

Urahara's incredulous exclamation wasn't exactly unwarranted by Snape's tale. "And you're still among the living?"

"Indeed." Snape shifted comfortably. "Quite amazing, actually. Though I would be lying if I said it wasn't sometimes a near thing. And, despite all of the shocks and surprises that that boy brings, it was more than worth it to make him my apprentice."

"He's good then," Urahara commented. "I know exactly how much of a perfectionist you are, you bat." The mirth in his eyes darkened as he took the opportunity to ask about the other questions that had been plaguing him since he had received the letters. "Potter-san can see hollows, then?"

Snape shut his eyes, tired both by the influence of the alcohol and by the subject. "Indeed, the boy is able to see them. The rather curious thing, aside from the truly amazing length of time he has been able to do so, is how he can hide himself from them entirely." At Urahara's surprised expression and inquisitively raised eyebrow, he continued. "If he wills it, hollows can neither see nor sense him or anyone he might have physical contact with at that moment. More so, they avoid the area wherein he has hidden himself if they come too close."

Urahara pressed on. "And shinigami?"

Snape allowed his mouth to twist into a frown as he muttered a quiet "Indeed." He met his friend's eyes over their table as he sipped another drink. "We nearly had an encounter with a hollow. The little brat grabbed my arm and pulled me back before hiding us. A moment later a shinigami, presumably the town's guardian, showed up and dispatched the hollow. He seemed to be vaguely aware that something was where we were, but seemed unable to see us. I presume he attempted to sense us, found nothing, and continued on his merry way."

"Do you know much of when this started manifesting for him?" Urahara was running options through his head, trying to figure out what may have happened to give the boy that sort of power. Or what experiment the Technology Division may have been tinkering with to produce such abilities."Or how?"

"No." Snape pursed his lips. "All I know is that it started before his time as a Hogwarts student, and the brat has always been incredibly close-mouthed about things that happened before he turned eleven. From what I can tell, he has not told anyone from Hogwarts about that time aside from perhaps Black. Who is dead as you know, and it is unlikely that we will meet him again unless he has enough reiryoku and will to become a shinigami. There have been no indications of anything of note except that he was one of the few who has historically asked the Headmaster if he could stay at Hogwarts over the summer, and I know that he considers the castle his true home, possibly his first. The conclusions that can be drawn from that are hardly encouraging."

"Indeed." Urahara responded, sipping his sake, not further pressing the topic as both men were left to their own private contemplations.


	7. 6: A Game of Catch

**Sorry for taking so long for this one. I like to have a chapter or two done before I update, and I managed to delete about two thousand words of my last chapter before realizing that if I hadn't been so quick to refresh it and see what I still had I could have saved my work with a simple 'undo'. That, and because it's midterm week, and I have all sorts of busy things to do. Well, midterm weeks due to a truly obscene amount of snow storms.**

**Yes, I changed the title. I was using my working title before, and I finally came up with something I was happy with using. Sorry for any confusion!**

* * *

Chapter Six: A Game of Catch

Yoruichi was a happy, happy kitty cat. She watched as her little kitten spun around and shunpoed towards her again. He had picked up the basics fairly quickly, especially for someone who was not very familiar with the concept. When asked, he had said that some of the people he now recogized to be shinigami had moved very quickly, but that he hadn't been able to figure out how. Even if he had gotten his eyes used to following quick movements, both by watching the shinigami and later snitch-chasing in Quidditch.

Although Yoruichi knew very little about the wizarding sport, she could see how being able to see low to average shunpos would increase his ability to see a quick moving golden ball half the size of her fist, and vice versa. In fact, she wondered if something like that off broomsticks could have been adapted into a training exercise for the Onmitsukido, or even shinigami in general.

No, it would not be a viable drill for shinigami in general. There were often too many factors to keep track of in one of their (admittedly few) battles that something that small would just have to be taken and dealt with by the shinigami. Hollows generally weren't subtle or tricky enough for that sort of thing. Until the Gotei 13 finally got their acts together about Aizen and his cronies, or Aizen shattered them and _made _them get their act together, that was all they would be dealing with.

Her kitten was certainly making progress, learning as he went. She would make him fast enough to outrun whatever shinigami they sent after him. People from the Living World who could deal in the affairs of the Soul Society beyond seeing the odd ghost were few and far between, and generally shinketsu. However, the boy was excetionally strong as far as sensing the dead went, and had odd powers to boot. Then there was the fact that Sev was fairly certain that the boy wasn't shinketsu despite his sensing and his odd powers, which meant that he was even more of a mystery to her and Kisuke.

The boy was going to in danger when Soul Society heard of him for being able to see them, if nothing else. It would be doubly certain if they ever heard about those powers of his. In reality, the only question was going to be who reported him, when, and whether he would become a lab rat of the Twelfth's Research Division, a prisoner possibly of the Maggots' Nest, or just plain killed in the Living World (and possibly the Soul Society) to get rid of the problem. The boy might be good, but no one can keep a secret (especially one as large as this when he definitely wasn't going to stop using the powers) forever. This was a problem because she was quickly getting attached to the messy-haired kid. She wasn't going to let the Soul Society take him from her.

In her distraction, Harry slipped up to her for a quick tag. By the time she had registered the touch, he had already leaped away, laughing gaily. Yoruichi grinned at her new student. It was good that he had taken advantage of her distraction, he wasn't going to have to break through any odd moral walls or arrogance about letting the enemy knowing you were there or something. It's such a pity that I didn't find him first, she thought.

"Harry-neko!" She called out, drawing her student back to her. The boy came quickly, and she was satisfied with his progress. It would be a while until he could catch her, but he was decently skilled for someone who had only been at it for a day. "Let's add another element to this game."

Harry, already used to the idea that he was a kitten to this woman, felt his face twist into a partial grimace, partial smile. Any new element would certainly help him in the long run with surviving this crazy but fun person, but it would probably hurt for a while until he got used to it. His legs ached a bit from the initial exercises from the shunpo and before he learned to properly regulate the energy he used there. "What is it?" he asked eagerly, despite his slight trepidation.

"Stealth next," Yoruichi thought aloud. "Then tracking. You've got the basics of moving quickly down, that will only improve with practice. It needs to be something you can do without much thought, or it will be useless in the sorts of high-stress situations you'll need it most in." Her tone was the most serious he had seen her use that day, and he paid more attention. "So, what do you know about stealth?"

Harry sat on a nearby boulder. "I've done my fair share of pranking," he said cautiously, "So I know how to sneak away from the scene of the crime. I've also had to sneak around some when my relatives were sleeping to not wake them. Does that help?"

"Some." Yoruichi wondered why he was sneaking around his relatives if not for pranks, but left it. If there were issues...well, the boy wasn't there anymore and despite how he seemed to resemble Severus when he wanted to, he really didn't look overly much like her friend. If there were issues there, then in the middle of a training session was not the time to suss them out, especially if they weren't hindering his actions at that moment. And if there were issues, she could be sure that Severus already knew about them. "Well, the next exercise you are going to be doing is to sneak from one side of the area we used to flash-tag to the other. Use boulders or whatever, but refrain from using your magic. This isn't meant to test your competency in that."

"Got it, Sensei!" Harry called out before disappearing again in a fit of shunpo back to the nearest end of the agreed-upon area.

Following this was several hours of what seemed to Harry to be brutal torture. Yoruichi, satisfied that the basics of all three skills had been absorbed enough by Harry to be useful to him, had decided to play another game of tag as a finale. She was still holding back, given that he was an absolute rookie in all but sensing, but she was holding back slightly less than before.

Even so, he was still gaining deftness with his new skills rapidly. Admittedly, most of them he had had some experience with (all but shunpo, really) so his reiryoku already was familiar with the patterns it needed to use to use various skills in their most basic forms, which had expedited this part of Harry's training rather easily. It wasn't as if Yoruichi knew much about this, but she was able to guess, knowing what she did about the young man's own powers.

For someone who had never properly worked with his reiryoku before, he was doing amazingly well. She was extremely proud to be a part of his process. The next time she got to train him, she would have to properly test how much he could use at the moment, and work on using his reiatsu a bit. It wouldn't do for the boy to be fazed by a little reiatsu-enhanced KI, after all. And...

"Tag." Harry's voice, slightly cracked by lack of water in a dusty environment after long exercise, sounded from behind her as she felt a small jab to the back. She spun around to tag him in return, but he had disappeared again. Yoruichi narrowed her eyes and threw out her senses but she couldn't find him anywhere. Realizing that this was his technique that Sev had mentioned, she tried again, as thoroughly as she could, to find him. She didn't know if she was surprised or not that she couldn't sense him at all from a reiatsu standpoint, and that her physical awareness, though not what it used to be while she was an active member of the Gotei 13 by any means, was giving her nothing. He had to be here somewhere, he wouldn't leave the training area she had chosen, but she couldn't have told anyone where he was at the moment on her life.

Suddenly the ground she was standing on rushed up to meet her _no she was falling into it_ and in her surprise she didn't get away quickly enough. She issued an involuntary yelp, followed by an exclamation as she tried in vain to free herself from the earth. She was buried up to the neck, and sending disruptive bursts of reiatsu seemed to be doing nothing to weaken the structure. Suddenly her kitten appeared in front of her, grinning madly.

"Hey, Harry-neko, mind letting me up now?" Yoruichi asked, face tilted up as to not inhale from the rock dust that covered the ground.

"That depends." Harry put a hand to his chin in an overly fake thinking pose, trying and barely marginally succeeding in hiding his exuberance at the success of his scheme. "Do I pass for today?" He snorted as he realized what he must look like to the cat woman, but figured that it was less than the flair for the dramatics she had shown around him in the last few hours and decided to leave his hand where it was. If she had a problem, she could deal with it at her leisure...when she was out of the ground. He could always put her back there if necessary.

Yoruichi looked down at herself-well, the ground where her bust should have been if she were not in a hole in the middle of the training grounds with all but her head surrounded by unforgiving dirt, anyway, and scoffed at him bemusedly. "Do you really have to ask, kitten?"

Harry shook his head sheepishly. He also looked where Yoruichi was looking before figuring out what she was seeing.

"So, do you mind letting me up? I know I'd like something cold to drink after all this training, if not food, and I'm sure you're no better, brat." she remarked. At his stomach's annoyed grumble, she amended the statement. "Food for you, definitely."

The boy snapped his fingers and she was standing on solid ground. Yoruichi stumbled gracelessly at the sudden dispatch of the dirt holding her in place. "Kitten?" She asked.

"It was an illusion, Yoruichi-sensei." He helped her up. "The snap was just for effect." Yoruichi broke out laughing, and he quickly followed. The two began the trek back to the ladder to the outside world at a walk, giving Harry a moment to recover.

She put her hand on his head for a moment, stopping them both. "Good job, kitten." His slightly surprised smile complemented her own satisfied one. The pair shunpoed the rest of the way.

Once they managed to drag themselves upstairs, Yoruichi bounded into the sitting room they had left Urahara and Snape in. "Kisuke! Severus!" She called out, drawing out the first vowel sounds of both of their names. Realizing that they were both drunk, she continued. "What have you two been up to while I've been training the kitten downstairs, hmmm?"

The pair managed to look up at her blearily. Urahara pulled his hat over his ears in a futile attempt to dampen the sound of Yoruichi's voice, which rang through the room. Yoruichi took their non-response as a sign to continue her commentary. "You've probably been up all this time drinking, if you're both this drunk. Neither of you are lightweights, I know you both better than that, you reprobates!"

"Yoruichi-sensei," Harry cut in. "Maybe you should go a little easier on them, like lowering your voice a bit and maybe some sympathy? They are old friends who haven't seen each other in years, after all." His soft tone earned the gratitude of both men, who had already managed to begin their hangovers. This gratitude was doubled when he produced a pair of sobering potions and another of hangover remedies.

"Fine, kitten." Yoruichi pouted. It would have been fun to tease the two men for a while longer, delighting in their winces, which were completely and totally their fault. Really, Kisuke knew better than to give her such an opportunity. It wasn't as if she hadn't done the exact same thing several times in the past. "I think it might be time for you to go home, kitten. Come by again, I've got so much more to teach you! And don't forget to get something to eat before you crash."

Harry blinked and looked at the time. "You're right, we should get some sleep. I have enough food for a snack back home, I'm sure. " He got a grip on Snape's arm and pulled him up as far as he could. "I'll be seeing you sometime, ne?" Snape said his goodbyes as well, before the both of them grabbed their cloaks from where they had left them and trudged across the street, presumably for Harry's snack and then straight to bed.

After they left, Yoruichi looked over to Urahara and plucked the hat off of his ears so he could hear her better. He looked up at her warily. He then paled at her rather...charming smile. "You know," she began, "We could offer them housespace. It isn't as if we are lacking in room." Her voice was predatory despite its casual tone. "So, what d'you say?"

"You just want more of Potter-san's time, Yoruichi." Urahara rebutted as he picked up his hat and put it securely back on his head.

They both knew that he was right, but that didn't keep Yoruichi from making another argument, any she could think of. "It would mean an improvement in food. I hear that my little kitten is quite the cook. From Sev, that's a high complement." She licked her lips in anticipation. "We would just have to make living here be worth their while."

Urahara started. "Edible, homemade food?" He shook his head wistfully as he picked himself up and made his way to his bedroom. While Snape's potions were godly, he still needed a good nights sleep both because of the hour and because of the alcohol.

Yoruichi grinned as the seed was planted. With a bit of luck, her little kitten would be living with them in no time at all.

* * *

While Urahara and Snape were drinking the times away and Yoruichi was introducing Harry to the basics of moving quickly and finding his target, the Ishida family had a small family meeting.

"Father, you wished to see me?" Uryuu sat at the small table across from his father. The abrupt summons were definitely something to be curious about, and therefore something he would definitely not blow off. It was indeed a rare occasion these days that he met with his father, rarer that his father initiated the contact, and rarer still that he did not know beforehand what the meeting was to be about. It had been this way since he moved to his apartment, on his last birthday.

"Yes. Do you have any outstanding plans for tomorrow?" Ryuuken put the pen he had been tapping on the paper in the open folder in front of him down as he looked at his son's face.

Uryuu shook his head. "No, I'm free tomorrow. What is going on, Father?"

Glare from the setting sun reflected off of Ryuuken's glasses, momentarily hiding his eyes. "An old friend of mine is in the process of moving to Karakura. While he is familiar with the town, he now has a young apprentice who has not been here before, and does not have the time to show him around while he puts together his shop. He is a few years older than you, but the only other person here with whom Severus is familiar who has a child is Kurosaki. I'm told that the boy, Potter-san, has the day mostly free, especially if you go early. They will be reopening the apothecary next to the Urahara Shoten, and should be living there."

"Fine." Uryuu said. "Is there anything in particular you think I should show Potter-san?"

Ryuuken took a moment to think about his question. "Introduce him to the Kurosaki children. Especially the boy."

"Fine." Uryuu repeated, and he left, wondering why Kurosaki in particular, and what sort of connection there was between his father and the boy's teacher, who his father called by that strange name, stranger than the boy's, even, and what sort of connection either of them had with Kurosaki. Not having enough pieces to complete any of his puzzles, he decided to put it out of mind until he had more information, and that he had better get to sleep soon if he was to show the boy around in the morning. He wasn't entirely sure where the Urahara Shoten was, after all.

Ryuuken sat back in his chair and pulled his glasses off, rubbing his sore eyes. He wondered just how he had gotten to this point in his relationship with his son, who was almost at the point where he wouldn't be calling him 'Father' any longer. He knew exactly where that point was, having been there with his own father.

He just wanted what was best for his boy, but Kanae was always the one who knew better how to be a family. After her death, there was nothing left between them but sorrow. She would have hated this, she wouldn't have stood for the distance. Then again, it should have been impossible for Uryuu to live past her death when her death was for such a reason. That was no comfort, because he didn't know if he would be a person still or a robot if he didn't have at least Uryuu, aloof Uryuu, to care about from the shadows of his young boy's life.


End file.
